


The Price of It

by Teawithmagician



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe, Background Het, Crossover, Drama & Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Female Character of Color, Frank in Iraq, Het, Male-Female Friendship, Marine Corps, Mercenaries, Military Backstory, Mutation, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, Protective Frank Castle, Protectiveness, Science Experiments, Women in the Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:23:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6477445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank comes to his ex-lover, former Marine, a mercenary of Redwood company, to reveal the shocking truth about her military successes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of It

“You are beautiful, you are stunning. You can shoot a man from a distance, the kill precise like a Swiss watch. What the fuck do you need? You can have anyone you want,” Frank turned his face to Jana, his fingers on his parted knees. The bonfire cast shadows playing with his face wildly. 

“I don't want any man,” Jana said, her achy back to the jeep's door, one her leg under her buttocks, another bend in the knee, her cap with the emblem of Redwood Security Company on it. 

“You want like what – like romance? Passion?” Frank's voice was husky, it gave Jana a little pleasant tremble climbing up her neck. 

Sometimes she wondered how would it feel to hear Frank singing. He said he used to sing in the car with his children, but Jana never heard that. Still, she thought that'd be a thing to remember.

“I'm a volcano, man,” Jana plunged her fingers into the sand. The first thing Marine taught was to express their thoughts direct and clear. Jana seemed to have a difficulty with that. “But I pretend I am a hill. Like I am all green and welcoming. Like you wanna go all picnic on me.” 

“The fuck are you talking about?” Frank turned his face to her and Jana checked it in case he suddenly became handsome. He didn't. Frank was no handsome, his face reminded her of rocks, fist fights and big dogs seating on the chains on the backyards of the dusty suburban houses. 

But it was not suburbia. Hell's Kitchen was looking at Jana from the bottom of Frank's eyes. Middle-eastern night surrounded them with the rustling of the wind and distant howling of jackals. In the violet cold of the badlands Jana froze, dreaming of Caribbean seas floating underneath her trembling eyelids. 

“Everyone loves hills and nobody wants to date a volcano bursting with lava,” Jana explained, getting the fistful of sand, slowly sinking between her fingers. The sand left the silk feeling tickling the skin. She used to play with the sand when she was a baby, to built castles of sand, and Frank confessed he was always the one to ruin them. 

“I like volcanoes,” Frank said. His lips were big and bluntly shaped, but when looking at him, Jana was sure Frank must kiss as confidently and relish as pressed the sniper rifle to his shoulder, watched into the side and pressed the trigger.

“You are married, Frank,” Jana shook off the sand from her hands. There must be rivers and palms there, too, but up the area. There they had been only camel jockeys rode and the sun burned. If it changed, it changed for the deadly cold in the night.

“But I still like them,” Frank tilted his head back, laughing abruptly. His long, bristle tanned neck, the bulging ball of the backup sliding up and down in one swallow. “The volcanoes. I like the way those bastards go bang.”

“If I told you I think you are a man who can make me feel electric, what would it change?” Jana said in a little while. 

She had never seen Frank that calm. He had a fiery temper and a bad tongue, but he seemed restful and cozy like favorite slippers. Jana felt like she was granted a permission to do with Frank whatever she wanted: to run her fingers trough his hair, to cuddle him and to hang on to his shoulders. 

They used to be friends even after Jana left the Corps, but as far as some invisible line was crossed, it became harder to be just friendly. Between them, a tension appeared, and the tension required a relief.

“I'd say I'd treat you nice,” Frank said, looking at Jana, Jana looking into the fire. “I'd say I'd treat you like a lady. And I'd say I'd keep you satisfied.” 

“Everyone of you boys is searching for the volcano women, but you marry the ones who can give you what you really want – and you want stability. Family. Kids.”

The fire was dancing on the kindling. Jana wanted to dance, too. She wanted to bring it to the floor and to dance the shit out of it. Out of the night, out of Frank's lips, out of his hands she knew he would hold her so tight she felt her knees melting. 

“Blasted nothing,” Frank laughed abruptly. “I ain't gonna leave them. My father left us, and it all became the bag of dicks. I ain't the motherfucker. I ain't leaving them.” 

“Good for you. And for me?” Jana raised her eyebrows. She wanted Frank to say he would sell his grandma just to get Jana a brilliant ring and despised him for that. But he was Frank, he was Siempre Fi.

“It's up to you to decide that's good for you. But – do you wanna know what I think? I think it's good for you to have me around.”

“You bring luck, or what?” Jana shoved Frank with her elbow jokingly, yet with a great deal of anger. “You have two kids. Two times your wife's birth controls were expired.”

“Or my little guys were tougher than them,” Frank shoved Jana in response. It made a significant boost, Frank's elbow was so hard Jana felt it through her bulletproof vest.

Jana grabbed the sand and try to pour in over Frank's collar, but he blocked her hand when she had already pulled it. Jana twisted Frank's arm and outstretched to another handful of sand, but Frank kicked the sand and it showered Jana with yellowish rain.

“So what about your wife?” Jana asked when she got the hold of Frank's finger, pretending to be breaking it. “Isn't she supposed to be your the one and the only?”

“My old lady can't do the things you can. She is wonderful, but she isn't you.”

***  
  


There was silence in the receiver when Jana told Frank to come and to take care of her. “Take care of me” was their code phrase. It meant the whole bunch of problem plus one or two excessive. But, most of all and first of all, it meant, “I can't do it on my own.” 

“I'm so tired I can't get off my bed. I can't play with my children, I can't open a bottle of beer, I can't even make out with my wife. Do you want me to pull up the stakes and go to Anchorage for you?”

“Does that mean you ain't going?” 

It was hard to hold the phone. Jana's arm was scorched, ramified marks entwining sore black skin. She didn't moan just because Frank wasn't supposed to know how bad she was injured before he saw her. 

“It means I do,” Frank answered abruptly and cut the call. Jana sighed with relief and slid down the rubber mat she put on the couch.

Dusty curtains were drawn, so the milky Alaska light had no chance to get in the room. Heavy gray clouds occupied the sky behind the curtains. There was no sun beyond them, only the snow. Heating pitter-pattered in the pipes, boiling water climbing the floors in jumps and ghastly noises of the old rust.

Jana coiled up, pressing her hands to her chest and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the house. The heating didn't get to her floor yet, it was cool inside but Jana didn't want to warm up – she had her own type of heating.

With the burning feeling rising in her chest, Jana pressed her hand to her mouth and screamed into it silently, while her body was exploding with spluttering prominences. It smelled with ozone and burning rubber. It was a good idea to put a rubber mat on the couch after all.

***

“Open the door.”

The message sounded with a terrible rumble. Jana threw a hand, reaching for her mobile phone. She texted Frank the key is under the doormat, sobbing quietly every time her nail pressed into the screen. Jana's nails were burnt to the flesh, and the flesh was still smelling with T-bone steakes, except the smell was sweeter and more rich.

Frank drew the key from under the doormat and put it into the keyhole. Jana's hearing, sharpened with pain, distinguished between weird muttering under his breath, “One batch, two batch, penny, and dime”. When Frank entered, the boards creaked, and Jana put her head down, phone falling off her hand.

Frank walked the flat, Jana knew there he was by the creaking. It was a good idea to keep the floors, she needn't exert herself to know there was he: he walked through two rooms, get into the kitchen, take a look into the bathroom and returned to Jana. Jana was pretty sure for all this time he had a gun under his jacket because it was Frank – he always had a gun under his jacket.

“Who is watching you?” Frank said, standing before the sofa and looking at the curtains. The night light on the wall gave a poor illumination, but Jana still tried to cover her arms with her body.

“Nobody. I got rid of everyone who would.”

“It's dark here. Who are you hiding from?"

Jana opened her eyes, watching him closely. She had a double vision, there were, at least, two Franks looking at her with their hands on their waists.

“Take the injectors in the kitchen. There are three of them. I need you to make shots in my spine cord,” Jana didn't recognize her own voice, it sounded like a death rattle. She didn't feel as bad as she sounded and she wanted to tell Frank this.

“Give me your hands,” Frank tried to take Jana's hand but she pressed it harder to her chest. “Hands are not important,” Jana shook her head stubbornly.

"Give me you fucking hands, January. Now,” Frank raised his voice. Jana pulled her knees to her chin, hiding her arms between her legs. She felt cold with her spine, her singlet must have ridden. The skin didn't ache anymore though it looked impressive even for a vet.

“First – shots, then – hands,” Jana mumbled, licking her lips. The tongue was dry, too, so it didn't help her much. Frank leaned over her, so she could see his face, and said the words.

“I ain't doing anything 'till you tell the truth. No joking,” Frank warned her. His calmness was menacing, the quieter he spoke the angrier he was. The final stage was him yelling and hitting things. He was going to burst into it any moment.

“Make the shots and I'll tell you,” Jana coughed at the smell of Frank's sweater, it was lavender fabric softener. She loved it, too, but the woman who did it to Frank poured lavender into all of her laundries.

Frank leaned over her, pulling her arms from under her belly by force. Jana didn't resist him much. Sooner or later the would see it. With no light, her wounds seemed older than they were, and not so disgusting,

“Who did it to you?” Frank roared. “Redwood? Rock?”

“That doesn't matter now,” Jana looked up at Frank, her eyes aching from even the smallest move. The ceiling was gray like clouds beyond the window, peeling off whitewash hardly seen in the darkness. “If you won't make the shots, I'll die. No joking.”

The tray rumbled like gunfire when Frank was preparing the dirtiest part of the job to be done in the kitchen. Jana had her time to cry silently from the impulses running up and down her ribs, cracking her chest apart.

She was trained to resist the pain. But the pain taking over Jana's body grew from its very core. She felt her body broken in hundreds of thousands shattered pieces, each piece aching in its own manner. That was more than a torture, that was a disintegration.

When Frank returned, it smelled with ozone in the room, the darkness highlighted by the gleaming scars on Jana's face. He must have seen the markings on the injectors, he must have understood. In the end, he was right, the Redwood's method was dangerous, but Jana wanted it in any way.

Here were the fruits of it.

Old clock on the wall minced the seconds. Frank sat down on the couch, pulling Jana's shirt. The syringes were ready, lying on his knee. The matter inside of them was dark and sticky and looked like oil except it was worse.

Frank put his hand on Jana spine and Jana trembled. Frank held her shoulder and started with, “Ready... Steady...”

“Go,” Jana gave a cry and screwed up her eyes. She was ready for the pain, but the pain was so immense her body was going to explode with it. Jana crooked up and moaned with terror as she couldn't even shout. Burning ran through her body, inflaming the toes, climbing up the skin, setting the cells on the electric fire.

“Here, baby girl. It's going to be alright. I'm here for you, baby girl. Don't cry,” it was Frank, holding Jana tight, pressing her to his chest with his big arms in the stinky lavender sweater.

He shouldn't have touched her. It was dangerous to touch her. The smell of ozone became stronger, Jana felt tickling underneath her exfoliating nails. It crackled and sparkled in her, it rushed out, it wanted to pierce into Frank's cells, make him glow and melt.

No, no, Jana was shaking her head, rocking from side to side. Not Frank, no. You can go everywhere you want, you can hit everyone you want, you can come out from my eyes, my skin, my fingertips for anyone you want to swing, to cry and to melt. By not into Frank, please, God, not into Frank.

“You are a brave girl. You'll make it through. You'll fucking make it through,” Frank was stroking Jana's hair, kissing her in the top of his head. She must have pinched him with what was bursting out from her body, but he still held her tight because she always felt better when he did.

“What did you say to your family?” Jana muttered to break the silence. The panic had gone. The power, overflowing Jana's body, too. Frank was in no danger, though she didn't know was it only for now or forever. If only she had somebody to make the job instead of Frank... but she only had Frank, and Frank was Siempre Fi.

“A friend of mine got locked so I needed to pay for the poor motherfucker to get out and wait for the court at his place,” Frank said in the top of Jana's head, still embracing her. He had strong and heavy arms, but when he held Jana, she felt like lying in the cradle. 

“They must really love you to swallow it,” Jana raised her head and whispered the words into Frank's cheek. Jana wounds didn't ache anymore, they just itched, making Jana want to rub her hands on Frank's sweater.

“One must really love you to tell this bullshit to his family. Now tell me what the hell is going on or I will break your fucking arm,” Frank shook her lightly and Jana started to creep out from his arms. 

“No, you won't. You're bluffing, you can't do this to me. But I will tell you the truth in any way. You won't like it much, though.” Jana leaned on the pillows as Frank let her go. His sweater was a bit scorched on the elbows and belly, synthetic threads scorched and glassy.

“Now tell the fuck is going on,” Frank demanded. He was suspiciously calm for the one who just saw Jana's body making lightning. Jana examined his face, not sure if a random lie was enough for him.

“You will be angry, Frank,” she said unwillingly.

“Talk the matter, alright? You're bullshitting me too much,” Frank snapped, out of his patience, nodules on his cheek moving. He sat on the edge of the couch, leaning forward, his knee apart, his clenched hands lying on his knees like a football player waiting for a pass.

Jana tilted her head, feeling her body in a new way. The injection started to work fast and she felt better though it didn't look better for her arms. The moment she felt better, Jana thought if that was a vicious circle.

The more side effect she got the stronger injections she needed. What about the time she wouldn't be able to find injection strong enough to adjust what the people from the company called “inevitable changes”?

***

West Euphrat views were flat like a table. You looked on the left and saw desert and goats, you looked on the right and saw the desert, bushes with tough dark-green leaves and goats. The sky was aluminum blue, getting smudged only in the period of the sand storms. Afghanistan differed a bit: there were desert, goats, and mountains. The search began at their feet. 

“The prick got lost, supposed to be taken hostage by “Rings”, and we have to find him,” started Rock, standing his back to Jana and her group, muscles on his broad dark neck moving. “His girlfriend is paying for the job, so we have to do it quick and smooth – quicker and smoother than the military, or we won't get paid.”

The briefing point was under the tent at the Redwood camp. Tent trembled on the wind which raised clouds of dust and drove them down the road, along with stray dogs, trotting in an easy manner. 

Everything was poor and easy here, people just didn't look like they cared: men looked indifferently, women were wrapped in dyed blue sheets from head to toes, and children clamored, trying to sell their thrash to the mercs and G.I.'s.

“The prick is our job, but the desert is big. How we are supposed to find him?” Luciano asked while Jana was checking the holder. She knew she was equipped due to the standard, but Frank used to check his gun and ammo before the task briefing. 

Though locals seemed indifferent, Iraq experience told Jana to extra beware and watch her moves. Frank's voice in her memory added, “Just check the holder, okay? No arguing, talk to the hand or talk to the bullet, I don't give a fuck. Just check it.”

“Big as my dick, that's why we've got the shots,” Rock wasn't going to turn his face to them, but Jana knew he was grinning. 

There was a new tattoo on Rock's shoulder, that meant that things were going on well. With every special task completed and company paid he made himself a tattoo. Rock was big, but Redwood became successful last several months. There once might be a time Rock didn't have space available for the tattoos.

“What are these shots, Rock?” Nicolas asked. He worked with explosions and knew Chemistry by heart, and he seemed worried about its structure. Jana should've gotten interested into it, too, but she had her reasons to keep quiet. 

Frank tell her the Scouts were given the stimulators, too, but only as an optional program with extra tax for testing. It was proved harmless “as said in the quarters”, yet no one had seen the full list of side effects, so most of the Marines refused it.

The stimulators Redwood used were different. They really made you faster and stronger, made your endurance the last longer and you getting less tired. Redwood stims gave Jana what she didn't have in US Marine Corps – a chance to be included into ops were normally only men were allowed.

“Don't ask much, Langat. With the little buddies, you are harder to get shot,” Rock turned to Nicolas and shove a syringe into his hand. 

There was a map on a folding table before Rock with more syringes on it. Other teams got their briefing but Luciano's as they had a little experience of Afganistan specific, though had given good results in Iraq.

“In case I've got tentacles after trying them, I just wanna know,” Nicolas smiled, making it all into a joke. Earlier Nicolas told Jana he wasn't going to quit stimulators, but she wanted to know what they were putting under their skin. 

In Iraq, Frank said that if he was Jana, he would no way made the shots. All that he needed he got from his training so his work required no GMO shit. But Frank was a man in an army with standards made for a man. He didn't feel rejected from the work just because his physiology was different.

“Your loverboy will be happy if you did,” Adam wedged. He was standing on the left from Rock, exploring the map while Rock got distracted by his tablet with mission tracking system. “Tentacles in the right places, they...”

“Are tentacles, Adam,” Luciano cleared his throat impatiently, but Jana spoke out first. When Adam started joking, everyone lacked the patience to listen to him to the end of his lines. “Let's get going for a big fish, okay?”

“None of you have any, haven't you?” Rock turned the tablet on with by sliding his finger across it. Adam stepped back from the table, but he needed no more time. 

The guy had an eidetic memory, he took a look at anything to have a picture of it for life. When he got concentrated, it was something in a kind of black magic. Unfortunately, Adam's sense of humor stayed on the level of the school he quitted. 

“Not yet,” Jana said mildly. It was an important mission, she was going to get paid really, really good, and she wasn't going to let anyone get provoked by Adam's weird talks.

“What about having some?” Adam giggled with that gurgling sound coming from his throat. “If one man gets jerked off by one your tentacle, imagine how many men you would have for a night. And if you were paid for the jerking off, you...”

“I don't get money for sex, because if I did, you would have a chance,” Jana cut him down, watching the Rock's table. The injectors were trembling, and Jana widened her eyes. An earthquake? The injectors were heavy enough, the wind wouldn't play with them easily. 

Jana exchanged looks with Adam. His pupils were in the size of pinheads. Jana turned her head to Nicolas and saw his stained hand with traces of psora. Luciano was staring the blank space, whispering somethings under his breath. 

Jana blinked, not sure what she had seen. When she blinked, everything disappeared. There was just her team and her and nothing on the table was moving.

“Shut up you both and make the shots,” Luciano took the syringes from the table under Rock's investigating look and handle them throughout the team. “Saving Stark in one way ticket to the fame and fortune. You'd better understand it, little shits.”

“I already do You know, the first thing I do when we find him?” Adam rolled up the sleeve, his lips twitching. 

“What?” Luciano barked, Rock smiling at him in his indistinguishable manner. 

“I make sure he remembers my name as well as it will be me who will take care of him while you, the bunch of rednecks, will be doing the rest of the job.”

“Fuck no,” Jana put the needle into her vein, clenching and unclenching her fist. Bruises on the bend of the elbow became brighter every time after the shots. “He will remember my name, dearie.”

“That's my girl!” Rock laughed thunderously and grabbing Jana's shoulders. Jana got the feeling he liked what he saw on her arm, the trace of injection bumping from her skin. “Marine Corps would never give you the opportunities we did.”

Jana took out the needle. The world blurred, flashed with wild colors, all pierced by the pulsing veins of energy. The carousel never really left, it got built into Jana's mind, showing her the new options of her physics she never knew about. 

And as she knew, she had her image of what they are starting from.

***

“So,” Frank started, Jana's head lying on his shoulder. He took off the jacket, staying in that lavender sweater of him. Lavender and ozone, filling the room together, smelled with a mountain meadow. 

“Do you think I'm buying this shit? Do you?” he leaned back just to look at Jana's eyes, and she nodded.

“I'm too tired to lie to you, so I'm telling the truth. All the mercs in the company used the time and we didn't even know which stims exactly.”

“A bunch of goddamn idiots.”

“Redwood took odds and ends of every squad and every army and made us First-Class Specialists no matter our personal... features. Stims got us going as a team, but they were not stimulators in the end,” Jana continued, waiting to Frank to start yelling at her. 

Frank kept silent, listening to Jana with his head down, so she couldn't see the expression of his eyes. He never avoided eye contact. A thing that a Marine never did was avoiding eye contact. When Jana caught the glimpse of Frank eyes, they were blank with fury. 

“Frank, you will either kill me or them. Please, don't do this. Everyone who was to pay, paid. Frank, promise me you won't go Iraq on them, and you won't go Afghanistan on them. Can you promise me this?” Jana asked, taking Frank's arm, his unusually soft fingers.

“I can promise you that if you won't tell me the fucking end of the fucking story I will gonna need more coffee. Tell me, January,” Frank squeezed Jana's hand, pulling her closer. “Why did you messed yourself up so bad?”

“Because I wanted to be no less than you,” Jana looked Frank into the eyes. “I wanted to prove I am worthy of something more. I was kicked from US Marine Corps in a year and a half because I was not a soldier they wanted. And I wanted to prove I could be a soldier everyone dreamed of.” 

They drive on VABs, and when the are became troubled, walked on their feet. There was no trace of the Ring's base and Luciano started to talk about coming back. They had explored every fucking rock, goat, and bulge, but the rest of the team was filled up with the wild energy. 

They decided that if they had information on hidden Ring's base they need to make sure it either wrong or right. Adam said he knew they would find Stark, they just needed to go on searching. Luciano took into consideration making a new plan: t break in twos and check the quadrant previously marked as blank.

The quadrant they explored was one of the less scouted, and Jana had the feeling it was bigger on the inside. The air reconnaissance gave no data on enemy forces, the are was mostly inhabitable, windy, with a very few water sources insufficient for a base.

Walking down the passage into the desert slope of twin mountains, Jana raised her head and looked at the sun, screwing up her eyes. The tops of the mountains were all the same, juts like the shallow stone dust, filling in the bumps on the path, Adam's face and neck red, his arms remembering Jana of boiled crabs.

“Where,” Jana pointed her fingers up and checked the belts of her backpack, putting her leg on the shaky stone, protruding from the body of the mountain. “The valley marked inhabitable is behind the mountain.”

Jana leaned forward, running her fingers on the rock in search of something she could hold on while moving around the cliff blocking her way up to the desolated path. The rock under her feet was still shaky, but the bumps for the head she found quickly.

“We must check it. Let's go,” she covered the distance between her and the path with her hands and knees. Jana was fast like a cockroach, moving up the table leg, Adam following her. 

Jana wasn't sure it was only her intuition that made her check the area. As when they had reached the passage, they put their guns at ready, slowly moving on the both sides of the passage going down the valley.

The last steps to the exit of the passage they made on their bellies because the feeling of something happening down there grew stronger. Abutting into the ground with her elbows, Jana outstretched her head, still not risking to take out her binocular as the sun was at its peak. 

What lied between the mountains, holding on to the rocky slopes, hiding in the caves and sticking out of them, was worthy roaming.

It was a hidden base like in intelligence reports Redwood Company retrieved from their military informants. The trucks were moving on the paths only shepherds walked, widening them and grounding, people dragging the boxes marked with dark seals which Jana didn't need to see to recognize: it was Stark's company.

“Adam?” Jana demanded. Adam was watching the plant through the thermal imagers, his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring violently. 

While Adam watched, he muttered under his breath: the precise amount of the guards, the helicopter on the landing ground behind the trucks, the lookouts with grenade-throwers, and the people observing the works from the cave there the lights flashed.

Jana put her chin on her fists, thinking about two things: firstly, there must have been something with the sound down there. The echo didn't get the end of the passage, some kind of unknown sound effect, so the rangers were never drawn to the place with the sound of working plant?

The second thing was they didn't know for sure if there was Tony Stark or there wasn't. Boxes with Stark's machinery told Jana nothing: nearly everyone in the Middle East from the army to local freedom fighters (at least, that was how they called themselves) used Stark's production. 

Finding a strategic object of the enemy was a great job with or without Stark, but the base didn't look much like a base. It was too big, too widespread, to heavy for the base. It looked more like a hidden... plant?

“We need to go down and checked the damned thing,” decided Jana, getting up on her fours, abutting her arms into the ground and outstretching her legs. She slid down to the closest rock, pressing her back at it, looking at the sun and on her watch. 

Adam came to her, whispering, “We have the positioning. Time to go back to the checkpoint.”

“Not yet,” Jana put her back on the stone, thinking of how they could go down and watch the plant-base closer when they saw the terrible rumble. One of the caves they saw exploded, stones falling down on the ammo and on the people, burying the third grenade-thrower lookout.

It was an explosion and the sound of howling, the one you hear when a sport-car passes by for its engine roaring. Like a torpedo it flew over Adam and Jana's heads, making them duck and cover. Jana's swore, pretty sure it was a rocket as the lookout noticed them, but that wasn't a rocket – would they shoot a rocket killing their own soldiers? 

The bullets lashed on the place there a second ago was Jana's head. She jerked down on the instinct and put her finger on the trigger. “We need reinforcements – team Alpha, anyone. They are just in the area”. 

Adam was shaking his communicating device feverishly, it was mostly turned off on the mission for the information not to be intercepted and must have been fully charged, but it didn't react. 

“The blasted thing ain't working!”

“We need to go back to the passage,” Jana demanded. “We need to...”

The bullet pierced through Adam throat, exploding it open. Jana rolled to another cover, hearing the voices speaking the language she didn't know but learned to recognize. With Adam's blood still on her face, she breathed, clenching M-16. 

The magic of the plant had gone and the sound went back to normal. Jana heard explosives, screams and shouts, sounds of gunfire and the people climbing up her cover. She jumped on the left and opened fire, feeling a jerk into her shoulder. 

It wasn't painful, but when her arm went numb, the pain came, the heated rod in the head of Jana's shoulder. She was still able to shoot with her one hand, yet the kickback was smashing the wound on her shoulder.

Jana remembered what she felt that very moment: fear, exasperation, despair. Anger. Frank would never get caught and die like this. Frank was never that stupid to get caught and to die like this. Something grew in Jana's, coming from her very core like a ball of lightning. 

She had already seen the faces of the enemies when she realized it's not just a feeling. Jana realized that and cried, her cry sinking in the roar of what was coming out of her with the smell of ozone and the heavy odor of the burned flesh.

***

Stark saved himself that day, Jana read it on the newspapers in the hospital wing there the mercenaries of Redwood Company were treated. She had saved herself, too – she walked out of the mountains to the base, her clothes half-burnt, scorches on her arms. 

Nobody got the reward for Stark's rescue though Rock found the information Jana brought useful, so she got paid for the mission. The insurance covered the treatment, so Jana lied in bed quietly, reading last articles about Stark's unexpected rescue and decision quit arm selling on all the levels of distribution. 

Everyone thought she got captured and tortured, and she kept mum about what had happened, but it seemed like Rock didn't believe the explanation much.

He kept on visiting Jana in the evenings, bringing her cigarettes and taking her on the walks around the hospital territory. Rock spoke of his own “capture experience” and said that it was Jana's business to apply or not to apply for psychologists' help, but if he was her, he wouldn't do it.

“Why?” Jana asked, taking a deep drag from a cigarette in her bandaged fingers. They were standing on the corner of the long building once being a school, there the canteen was situated along with the administration. 

The sunset was viciously orange with a few smudges of dark blue and lilac, rare clouds passing by it. It was always colder in the evening, so Rock gave Jana his jacket, smelling with tobacco and spicy Hindu diners.

“They don't really help,” Rock let the clouds of smoke out of his mouth, watching the children of the medics playing volleyball on the cracked sports ground. 

The boots were jumping into the air and hitting the ground and knocking clouds of dust, the ball jolly bouncing and flying over the net just to bump into the ground or somebody's hands again. 

“They don't know what we've been through. Poor bastards, they try to understand it but never succeed. Keep your memory safe and away from them. That'd be only better.”

“What if I wanted to talk about that?” Jana asked, cigarette frozen before her mouth. When she returned, she had the strictest intention never to speak about what had happened again. 

Nobody would believe her, Jana barely believed herself. If the psychologists involved, Jana risked being considered mental for life which meant no more contracts.

“Do you want it?” Rock gave Jana a look and she thought that he somehow knew. She didn't know how, but he knew or he suspected that there was something more than Adam's death and “tortures”. 

“No,” Jana shook her head. Adam was dead, and she wasn't able to find some proper feelings about it. Frank told her, some took deaths for granted. You saw your friends dying and just tried not to join them, that's all. 

“There was a burned hole in the place of the plant,” Rock started, crossing his arms on his chest, and Jana made another drag to hide her tension. Her fingers slightly trembled. though she managed to keep them still. “Not literally, but they must have a power blackout and most of their machinery just exploded. Or,” Rock made a deep, restful laugh, “got hit by a lightning. Do you know something about that?”

“I know nothing, Rock,” Jana threw the cigarette away. She didn't like her patient's rope much, yet the medical personnel insisted on wearing it: it was included in the insurance. “I just want my pudding, it's a snack time and I really wish it is coffee and pudding.”

That night Jana couldn't fall asleep for several hours, rolling on the bed, her head empty after the tranquilizer she was prescribed by the neurologist. When she finally fell asleep, she had a weird dream about the moon singing over the muddy-gray barracks of the hospital. 

The moon sang with Adam's voice and it was so fantastic it put a tear in Jana's eyes. Jana clapped her hands in astonishment and the moon, attracted by the sound of the applause, leaned over Jana's bed. It had a beautiful round face beautiful like on the old postcards, but the eyes were blank and lifeless. 

Jana realized that she couldn't stop clapping at the dead moon's face. She felt the pain in her hands, firstly piercing, and when – gently biting and nearly pleasant. There was a white lightning in her hands, captured between her arms like in Tesla machine, dancing on the tips of Jana's finger and looking absolutely harmless. 

Jana wasn't afraid of the lightning in her dream until she realized it wasn't a dream – she was sitting on her bed with lightning in her hands. Jana bit her lips, trying to keep calm. Last time she panicked, it became only worse. 

Jana didn't want it to happen again. She couldn't afford it and she wouldn't stand it, but the lightning, cracking gently, wasn't going to leave. The panic was rising, drops of sweat coming out on Jana's forehead, her armpits and face sweating like mad. 

“Help,” she rustled, and the door opened with a crack, Rock standing in the doorway, wearing strange kind of vest which was all shiny, reflecting the lights on the corner of the hospital wall.

“Don't move, Jana, and nobody would get hurt,” asked Rock. Jana looked down and saw two jiggling red dots on her chest, jumping and crossing in the darkness.

“What are you going to do?” Jana asked, watching the lightning in her hands closely. It didn't disappear though became visible unstable, electricity bursting out with plenties of sparkles. The blanket started so smoke, the smell of the rain filling the room, strong and powerful as though Jana returned home again.

“I'm sorry,” said Rock. He wasn't really sorry, but he saw the lightning. “I didn't tell you what the tests were about. You are more than just a common merc now, consider it as an upgrade. You won't be able to walk around and live the life you lived, but fortune and fame, it'd be all yours. Don't forget a contract for life, I had already mentioned it.”

“Don't do it,” Jana said, her head down, her eyes fixed on the lightning. “I can't hold it back. Don't make me unleash it on you. We were friends.”

“We are friends,” Rock took his pistol, red dots multiplying on Jana's chest. “And I am helping you – like a friend. If the S.H.I.E.L.D. knows of you first, you'll be trapped forever. I am offering you a work. Who would do it for a freak like you?”

The lightning hit Rock into the vest and bounced in the wall like a volley ball. Snipers shot, feathers bursting out from Jana's pillow, but she wasn't in her bed anymore. She was standing on the floor, swinging, sparkles running in her hair, her face distorted, her arms shaky from the tension coming throughout her body. 

“Did you kill him?” Frank asked, cracking his knuckles. He always said he never believed in secret research tested on soldiers and mercenaries, he said one must be nuts to make out such stories. Even though Frank saw that Jana's body was able, did he – did he really believed her?

“No. Not that day,” Jana confessed on hesitating. “Rock was giving stims to all of his mercs. The ones who appeared especially sensitive and capable, he sold out. To whom, I don't know yet.”

“Did the Redwood hunted you?” Frank put his elbow on the couch. He was thinking about something, and, according to everything that Jana knew about him, Frank was thinking out for a strategy.

“They did it, too. A lot of people who lost me for a couple of months. But they will find me one day, I'm sure.”

“If the crazy shit you are telling me is true, you are in trouble, baby-girl,” Frank said, looking at Jana. “We need to do something about that, and I have an idea.”

“I know,” Jana took out the syringe she hid between the pillows and stuck it into Frank's hip. Frank pushed Jana way from the couch, and threw the syringe out in the same moment, but it was too late. 

Frank was able to stand up, to make a few steps, swinging and blinking his eyes. After he fell on his knees, looking at the syringe and trying to read the markings. That was senseless, his vision must be darkening in that moment, letters jumping before his eyes. 

“That's why I have to leave you behind. You have you family, Frank. I have you. If I can't have you, I can't fight for myself. Thank you for the injections, I wasn't able to end the transformation on my own. But you – you need to sleep,” Jana helped Frank lie on the floor and stroked his hair, making sure his breath becomes deep and calm. “I will miss you, big boo. I will miss you so much.”

***

“My old lady, she didn't just break my heart. She'd rip it out, she'd tear it apart, she'd step on that shit, feed it to the dog. She knew what she was going to do and she did it, leaving everyone and everything behind. She was ruthless. She brought the pain. But she'll never hurt me again,” Frank said, and Caren with frightening clearness understood that Frank wasn't talking about his wife.

 


End file.
